


A Good Plus One

by sodapeach



Category: VICTON (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, cameos all over the place, i don’t know if i’ll raise the rating yet, i think, more tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodapeach/pseuds/sodapeach
Summary: Seungsik’s big mouth gets him and his roommate in a bit of a bind when he tries to impress his boss with “family values” at an important work event.
Relationships: Han Seungwoo/Kang Seungsik
Comments: 24
Kudos: 70





	A Good Plus One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! I hope this one isn’t super long, but you never know 🙈 anyways I hope you enjoy it!!!
> 
> I haven’t worked out an update schedule but ideally I would like to do this once a week, but I’m a little impulsive, you see.

Seungsik loved his job. Sort of.

He loved the kind of work he did. To some it was boring, even tedious, but he got to see the world change with his own eyes, and he got to be a part of that change. It was like he lived in the tech epicenter of the world, and his path was clearly laid out for him to be the kind of person who one day would decide what people kept in their pockets and in their homes. But that was going to require about a million promotions short of a miracle, and it was easy to say that there was a huge wall splitting his career road in half.

And the grand architect of that wall was his boss, Mr. Lee Dongwook. 

Mr. Lee, his company’s CEO, was brilliant. He understood design and tech in a way that made coding read like poetry, and he knew how to take something simple and make it luxurious. Mr. Lee was the reason Seungsik applied for the company as an intern barely out of college in the first place because he wanted to learn everything that he knew. He wanted to learn how to spin straw into gold, and he was sure that Mr. Lee was the only man in the industry who could teach him.

At first, moving up in the company from intern to regular employee wasn’t even that hard. During the company’s monthly workshops, he and the other interns were required to share their ideas, and if the team in charge liked what they saw, their ideas were absorbed into the company’s think tank, and they were offered a proper job with all the bells and whistles.

Seungsik’s presentation was for an app called Heartbeat, and it was his baby. The development team liked it enough to bring him on board, and he spent  _ years  _ trying to get the company to launch it, but there was only one problem.

Mr. Lee Dongwook.

Mr. Lee wasn’t a villain by any means, but his  _ values _ were making Seungsik’s life a living hell.

_ We just need to know that you’re really committed to what we’re doing here, Mr. Kang. _

It wasn’t that Seungsik didn’t work hard enough. He practically devoted his life to the company, and he never once took a sick day. He was more than devoted, he was  _ dedicated,  _ but it didn’t matter how dedicated he was because only the  _ long term _ employees who Mr. Lee trusted got to call themselves team leaders, and only team leaders got to have their projects launched.

And he still didn’t trust him.

Mr. Lee didn’t trust Seungsik because of one silly little thing that was completely out of Seungsik’s control. Seungsik’s personal life.

In his opinion, the willingness to commit to a career directly correlated with a person’s willingness to plant roots, and apparently being a single guy in his twenties who minded his own business was against the company vision. To him, Seungsik was just some unmotivated party boy with no real plans for the future, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Seungsik wasn’t spending his nights at a club and going on binges. He was playing board games with his roommate and looking at cat pictures! Why did it matter that he was single if he was getting his work done?

“This is so stupid,” Seungsik said, frustrated. “He won’t even listen to any of my ideas because of this stupid, probably illegal, policy of his. Like where am I even supposed to meet someone when I spend all my time  _ here?” _

Seungyoun, the person who Seungsik shared a desk with and one of his closest work friends, laughed before bringing a paper cup of water to his lips. “In house? A little office romance wouldn’t kill you.”

He sighed. “No, but it’d probably get me fired.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “But then you could be free to work somewhere else where they don’t care what you do in your free time.”

“But I need  _ this  _ job,” he said with a slight whine to his voice.

Seungyoun scowled and took another sip of water. “What about that roommate of yours?”

“What about him,” Seungsik blinked.

“I’m sure he knows some single people,” he said. “Ask him to set you up.”

He hummed and shook his head. “No, I couldn’t. That could make things weird between us because, like, those are his friends and there are boundaries and stuff, and I don’t want to have to learn how to live with another person if somehow I accidentally make one of his friends hate me.”

“That’s true,” he said. “Hey, so what if you never move up? There’s a job for everyone. A step at the bottom of the ladder is just as important as a step at the top.”

Seungsik groaned and slumped against the wall. “But I don’t want to be a step at the bottom. Steps at the bottom don’t get their projects launched.”

“I know,” he gave a sympathetic half smile. “Maybe you’ll find someone soon.”

“Maybe,” he sighed. He crumpled up his paper cup and tossed it in the bin next to the water cooler. “Break’s over.”

Seungsik and Seungyoun went back to their desks. They were seated close enough that they could continue their conversation undetected if they needed to, but far enough that there was a clear distinction of their two separate energies. Appropriately, their desk was split down the middle by a shiba plush that represented them both. Seungsik’s side was orderly with crisp corners, and Seungyoun’s was a little bit of a work in progress, but both sides suited them.

Seungsik put in his password and checked his emails before diving into his work in case he missed an update on the geo-weather app Sooil got approved last month. Congratulations to the happy couple. But instead of a work update, there was an unread email labeled as urgent from the Human Resources department.  _ 34th Annual Company Dinner RSVP.  _ He put his head in his hands and almost broke out into tears from the subject alone. 

The annual company dinner wasn’t like a night of drinks in a private room at a nice restaurant. It was a  _ gala _ . People gave  _ toasts.  _ Even reporters were known to show up if it was a slow news day. It was when him being the single  _ party boy _ of Mr. Lee’s imagination was fully put on display. Every year he went alone, and every year he was pushed two steps back. Maybe he could play sick...

“Don’t cry,” Seungyoun mumbled.

“Easy for you to say,” he hissed under his breath. 

“I’m single too!” They looked at each other aware that Seungyoun had been a little too loud and cleared their throats. Luckily no one else at the office seemed to care. 

“Yeah, but you’re his school junior,” he reminded him quietly. “You’re  _ immune _ .”

Seungyoun looked over and gave him a cheeky smile. “I am, aren’t I.”

Seungsik put his head in his hands and pretended to sob. This was a nightmare. An actual nightmare. Seungyoun could do whatever he wanted, and all he had to do was offer a soft spoken apology with a little pout, and Mr. Lee forgave him for everything, but when Seungsik tried it, he accused him of being too used to getting his way.  _ In what world?! _

He looked up at his computer screen and squinted at the light like he had a hangover. The longer he stared at it, the more he felt like he was staring into the sun, but he couldn’t hide forever. He had to take the plunge and suffer the consequences. He had to open the email.

He moved his cursor over the subject and clicked, letting the fear of the known unknown wash over him like a cold wave.

It was a simple flier pasted into an email with the time and place written plainly. Apparently the dinner was  _ Semi-Formal _ whatever that meant, and attendance was mandatory for all upper and middle level employees. He was about to type out a lazy  _ I’ll be there  _ for his RSVP when he noticed that the invitation also required a response for the employee’s plus one.

“What do I do,” Seungsik whispered. “They want me to confirm for two people.”

“Just tell them one,” he shrugged. “You can’t pull a date out of thin air.”

“Hey guys,” one of their other coworkers said, walking over. His name was Wooseok, and he worked in Human Resources, and the sight of him at  _ that  _ moment made Seungsik want to hide under his desk.

“Hey,” they said at the same time, Seungsik like he was greeting his dentist, and Seungyoun like he was greeting his best friend.

“We forgot to put a notice for catering in the email so I’ve gotta run around and get everyone’s preferences before we place the order,” he said, holding a clipboard in his hands.

“Wouldn’t a second email have been easier?” Seungyoun asked.

Wooseok gave him a thin, annoyed smile. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you.”

“Annoying supervisor?” Seungsik asked.

“Annoying coworkers,” he blurted out and then quickly flushed. “Pretend you didn’t hear that. Anyways, not everyone feels like responding to emails so since we’re pressed for time, they sent me up to ask myself like some kind of cocktail waiter.”

Seungyoun leaned forward on his elbows, looking up at him with puppy eyes. “Wooseok, if someone hears you, you’re going to get in trouble.”

Wooseok scowled. “Who’s gonna report me? I’ll just throw the complaint away.”

Seungsik and Seungyoun both chuckled.

“Sorry,” Wooseok said quietly. “But if people answered their emails…”

Seungsik and Seungyoun both looked at each other.

“I was in the middle of typing my response to the first one,” Seungsik said, a little afraid. It wasn’t  _ technically  _ a lie. He had opened the reply and had pressed  _ a  _ key.

“And I was waiting for him to send his first so that our servers don’t get clogged,” Seungyoun said matter of factly. Wooseok raised an eyebrow. “It’s true! That’s a thing that happens!”

He shook his head and waved them off with the hand holding the pen. “It’s not just you guys. Anyways, we have a vegetarian option, and we have chicken and salmon, but if you want gluten free, I think you’ve gotta go with the veg.”

“Salmon?” Seungyoun asked. Wooseok scrunched his nose and shook his head.

“Chicken…” he tried again. Wooseok nodded. That was a sign that the salmon was terrible. Seungsik made a mental note to not eat that. “Okay, chicken is fine.”

“And are you bringing a date, Seungyoun?” Wooseok asked while he carefully made a note on his clipboard.

“Nope,” he said casually, sitting back in his chair. “Just chicken for me, thanks.”

Wooseok nodded and made a little mark. “And what about you, Seungsik. Chicken, salmon, or vegetarian?”

“I’ll do chicken too,” he said.

“Great. And your plus one?”

_ “Uhh,” _ Seungsik swallowed.  _ Sorry, I don’t have a date  _ is what he would have said if his one brain cell was working, but apparently it had abandoned him to do important things somewhere else. Wooseok waited for an answer, but the longer Seungsik sat with his mouth open, the shorter his patience became, and it didn’t seem like Wooseok was in the mood for  _ anything  _ that day. “Ch-chicken is fine for them too.”

Seungyoun looked at him in shock. Seungsik grimaced at him, hoping he wouldn’t say anything.

“Great,” Wooseok said. “Have you guys seen Chan? He’s not at his desk.”

They shook their heads no, and Wooseok’s small frame shrank even more than Seungsik thought possible.

“Damn it,” he frowned. “Thanks anyway.”

Wooseok left quickly to go track down their other coworkers, and Seungsik was left with Seungyoun glaring at him out of the corner of his eye.  _ Please don’t look at me. I know I’m an idiot. _

“You know you’re an idiot, right,” Seungyoun asked.

Seungsik looked at him and frowned pitifully. “You didn’t have to say it.”

“You know it’s going to be ten times worse if you show up and try to explain why there’s a $30 plate of food untouched next to yours.”

“Is it my fault if the catering is overpriced,” he squeaked. “Must they spend that much for a chicken breast?”

“Indeed they must,” Seungyoun teased him. “You might wanna go catch Wooseok before they roast and pluck  _ you.” _

Seungsik shook his head. “No, it’s not a big deal. I’ll just find a date. I can do that in like, what, a week?”

“Check again,” he said, returning to his work. Seungsik looked at the open email on his screen and paled.  _ Since when do they send out the RSVP memo a day early? How is that even a good idea? No wonder Wooseok was scrambling around to get the menu ready. _

He couldn’t pull out his phone at his desk, and he  _ just _ got off his break so he was going to have to wait to ask someone, but the clock was ticking. The longer he waited to ask, the less likely it was that any of his friends would have been free.

“Ummm,” he said, standing up abruptly. “I think I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Thanks for the announcement,” Seungyoun said, amused.

Seungsik ignored him and hurried off to the bathroom where he could contact one of his friends in private. He didn’t know  _ a lot  _ of people. There was Jaeyoung, but he was pretty sure that he was out of town thanks to a few stray instagram stories. Hanse was definitely busy so there wasn’t a point in asking. He would just get his feelings hurt once he said no.  _ Byungchan? _

Byungchan was tall, delicately pretty, and the kind of person people wanted to take care of. He was perfect. Mr. Lee would take one look at Byungchan and know that all of Seungsik’s personal time was occupied with doting on him, and they were close enough that if he had to hold his hand, Byungchan probably wouldn’t scream in horror.

Seungsik opened up his messages and found Byungchan’s name. With no time to waste, he dropped his whole proposal in one go and waited patiently. He said a silent prayer, and a few seconds later, Byungchan finally responded.

**Byungchan:** please dont hate me….

_ Uh oh. _

**Byungchan:** I already said yes to Jinhyuk 🙈 

_ Jinhyuk?! _

**Seungsik:** ………. u what

**Byungchan:** :C i didnt know you were gonna ask i’m sorry 

**Seungsik:** it’s fine i’m sure i can find someone else :) see you at the dinner

_ How could this happen? Why am I already out of friends? How could someone mistake me for someone flakey when I don’t know more than three people?  _ Seungsik, still seated on the toilet seat, put his head in his hands and whimpered. 

“You okay in there,” a voice asked from the other stall.

Seungsik’s eyes widened. He cleared his throat and coughed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

Quite red faced, he waited for the other person to finish up and leave before he returned to his desk, and when he did, Seungyoun was gone.  _ Strange.  _

But he didn’t have time to worry about where his coworker had run off to because he had other things to worry about like how the  _ hell  _ he was going to get out of this without having to chase Wooseok down and wrestle his clipboard from him.

He looked at the open reservation on his screen and swallowed. There was nothing he could do to get out of this short of dropping dead, but there were people waiting on the other side. It was rude to make someone’s job harder than it already was just because he was  _ stupid.  _

With a resolved breath, he sent his confirmation for himself and his plus one before putting his head on his desk. 

“You good,” Seungyoun asked, returning in a hurry.

Seungsik looked up and frowned, too miserable to pretend like he was, but then he saw Seungyoun’s disheveled appearance and raised a brow. “Your shirt’s untucked.”

“Huh? Oh, thanks.”

“No problem,” he said, and then he returned to his own big problem.

The drive home was miserable, and it wasn’t because of the traffic. He barely got anything done all day because his stupid brain was too busy thinking of all the ways Mr. Lee could passive aggressively remind him why he would never move up with their company. Maybe Seungyoun was right. Maybe he needed to find a new company.

But where? They  _ owned  _ Heartbeat, and even if he could dream up another app, he didn’t want to. He loved it like it was his own child, and it deserved to make it out into the world. It deserved to grow up and have its own life, and he was a failure of a parent for not being able to make it happen.

Maybe he could turn this into a positive? If the dinner was bad enough, he could use it as motivation to meet someone before the dinner next year, but office single shaming shouldn’t have been a motivator to find love. He didn’t even want to find love. He wanted a promotion, a bonus big enough to pay off his car, and maybe some time off. But most importantly, he wanted to lead his own team and launch his baby.

He dragged himself into his home. It was a small three bedroom house he shared with his roommate that they rented. They each had their own rooms and shared the third equally for guests and storage. Seungwoo’s parents used it the most because they often came into the city to visit him, but it was fine because they always brought plenty of food to share with Seungsik so he didn’t mind that Seungwoo basically had two rooms to himself. 

When he got home, he didn’t expect for him to be there on a Friday night, but the first thing he saw when he opened the door was Seungwoo folded up on the couch watching a movie.

“Hey,” Seungwoo greeted him.

“Hey,” he said, drained. He dragged himself towards his own room, ready to yank off his tie and lanyard and throw them in the garbage.

“You good?” He called out.

“I might as well be,” he said over his shoulder. He walked into his room and closed the door behind him, not in the mood for small talk. He knew Seungwoo didn’t care because he was watching a movie so he probably wasn’t in the mood to talk either.

Seungsik got rid of the weights around his neck and set them down on the dresser before sitting himself down on the side of his bed. He found an interesting spot on the wall and proceeded to stare at it for a good fifteen minutes before a small knock came to the door.

“Hey are you dressed?”

“Yeah,” Seungsik said. Seungwoo opened the door and pushed his head through the crack, nose first. “What’s up?”

“You look grumpy,” he said. “I have the cure.”

“Do you,” he asked, tired. He gave him a kind smile, but he wasn’t really in the mood to joke around or entertain a visitor, but that wasn’t Seungwoo’s fault. Unless he was ready to produce a date for him, there was no cure, and Seungsik didn’t exactly have the energy to humor him. Seungwoo pushed the door open all the way and presented a plate of cookies in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. Seungsik couldn’t help but laugh. “Really?”

“Oh, these are for me,” he said with a grin. “Don’t get it twisted.”

“Oh, okay,” he laughed. Seungwoo came into the room and sat next to him. Seungsik took a chocolate chip cookie (the kind from the blue box) and nibbled on the edge, letting the crumbs fall to his lap without a care in the world.

“You seem to have a problem.”

“I might,” he nodded. “A big one.”

“Oh?” Seungwoo took a vanilla wafer off of the plate and bit it in half. “You need money?”

“No,” he laughed. “It’s not like that.”

Seungwoo hummed and nodded. “You have a  _ work sucks  _ look on your face.”

“Do cookies help with  _ work sucks  _ problems?” 

“Probably not,” he said. “But bitching about it does.”

Seungsik finished the rest of his first cookie and took the glass of milk from him that they apparently were sharing. He shook his head. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sure it is,” he said. “But if you blow up and call your boss a worm headed flamingo to his face, he might not think it's as funny as I will.”

Seungsik laughed at the description, feeling a little bit better enough to talk about it. “You know my job is weird right?”

“I mean, you haven’t really told me much about it, but I know you work too much.”

“I don’t work too much.”

“You’re never home.”

“Neither are you,” Seungsik pointed out.

“How would you know that if you’re never home?”

“Because you’re a workaholic.”

“That’s because I love my job,” Seungwoo said.

“I love  _ my  _ job,” he said. “But my boss…”

“Is a jerk?”

“No! He’s actually the nicest person ever. He’s just… peculiar.”

“He doesn’t like, do stuff to you, does he,” Seungwoo asked, horrified.

“No! Nothing like that! He just… he hates single people.”

Seungwoo snorted.  _ “What?” _

Seungsik winced. “I know it sounds stupid, but he doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t fit his idea of what a serious adult is so he thinks I’m just out fucking around when I’m not at work so he doesn’t want to trust me with my own project and risk costing the company a lot of money.”

“You’re literally spending a Friday night eating cookies with your roommate,” he said. “Should we install cameras for him?”

He laughed weakly. “It wouldn’t matter anyways.”

“So what’s the problem? Why is this bothering you now?”

“Because,” he said carefully. “Tomorrow night is this big fancy work dinner, and everyone is going to be there, and well, I fucked up and reserved a place for a date  _ I do not have _ .”

“Did you ask one of your friends to go with you?” Seungwoo asked.

“Byungchan is going as someone else’s date, Jaeyoung is out of town, and Hanse is busy,” he sighed. “I am  _ screwed.” _

“Can you tell them your date can’t make it?”

He shook his head. “I think that the empty seat next to me would be more of an omen for my career than anything.”

Seungwoo hummed, understanding. Seungsik shoved another cookie in his mouth and chomped on it angrily. This wasn’t fair! Why did he have to bring a date when he could just save the company money by being single! It was a win win! “I could go.”

Not sure if he heard him right, Seungsik choked on the cookie in his mouth. It lodged itself in his throat, and Seungwoo pounded his palm against the middle of his back while asking if he was okay. Once Seungsik got it down, he waved him off and chugged the rest of the milk to wash down the cookie and the panic.  _ “What?” _

“I don’t have anything else to do tomorrow, and this seems like an easy problem to solve. So like, what will I have to do? Just sit there and clap when everyone else claps?”

“You’ve gotta wear a suit,” he warned. 

“So,” Seungwoo shrugged. “I’ll live.”

“And put up with all my boring coworkers,” he said. 

“All coworkers are boring,” he reminded him. “I’ll live.”

Seungsik looked down and swallowed. “And like, I wouldn’t ask you to pretend to like me, but like…”

“I would have to pretend to like you,” he nodded. “It’s just one dinner. I mean, unless you would rather someone else go… I didn’t mean to, like, invite myself.”

“No!” Seungsik shouted. “I literally don’t know anyone else! You would be a life saver! I just feel bad…”

“Free food,” he asked. 

“Yep.”

“Open bar?”

Seungsik hummed. “Maybe just champagne.”

“I can work with that,” he nodded.

“You’d really go with me?” Seungsik almost cried. He couldn’t believe that not only did Seungwoo agree to be his work dinner date, Seungwoo  _ offered  _ to be his work date. He didn’t even have to bribe him. 

Of course he offered. He was a nice guy who hated seeing people in distress, and he was always the first person to offer to help others in need. It didn’t matter if they needed a job reference or help moving to a new home, Seungwoo was there for them. Seungsik made a point to never take advantage of that because he knew what it was like to be the person who everyone relied on, and he knew that it took its toll.

“Yeah, there’s no use in you worrying yourself to death over it,” he shrugged.

“I’m pushing my luck here, but do you think you could help me convince my boss that I’m not running an illegal gambling ring in our living room while you’re there?”

“I will be so charming that literally no one in your whole company would ever question you as a person again,” he said with a proud grin.

That was easy enough, he thought. All he had to do was stick with his roommate for the night and maybe Chan and Seungyoun, and he could probably play off his lack of a personal life for a few more months. 

There was no way Mr. Lee would ever ask Seungwoo for more than his name. There would be too many people there to talk to so hopefully he would just come to his own conclusions, and they wouldn’t have to do more than eat expensive chicken breasts in peace. This wasn’t a bad idea at all. They could pull this off just by being roommates who kept to themselves for a few hours like they did whenever Seungsik had to go with Seungwoo to one of his family’s events.

He knew he could trust Seungwoo as much as he could trust his closest friends, and this was something that neither one of them could screw up so there was nothing else to worry about other than making sure that they made it to the venue in time.

But oh how very wrong he was, and it wasn’t Seungwoo’s fault either.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you think! 
> 
> I can be found on twitter @hugsubin ❤️


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